This reminded me of something that happened to me a while ago…look, this is gonna sound like a joke but is 100% real. So, I was working at a beach restaurant during the summer and of course, there were a lot of tourists. And there was this American couple…they were young, I don’t know but they couldn’t be more than thirty and my coworker didn’t really speak English, so they entertained themself by talking with me. With was fine, like, my English wasn’t the BEST but I could understand them and they understood me, and I was kinda embarrassed because yikes talking with a native with your mutilated try of their language is embarrassing. But hey, I could use the practice and there weren’t a lot of people at the time, so I kept talking with them. You know, trivial things, everything normal until…until they asked me why there were so many white people in Spain, that they were surprised. And….and I didn’t know how to answer that, I really didn’t know what they meant, either. Because how you answer that??? and then they asked me if had some family from the north because my eyes are light, and I said no, and they KEPT INSISTING. Look, I don’t really know if my great-great something was german or whatever because I haven’t analyzed my dammed biological tree, I don’t know, I don’t care, but I can assure you my parents, my grandparents, my great grandparents, and my great-great-grandparents were Spanish. And what the hell, light eyes aren’t exclusive of northern countries what the fuck. Why people think that??? I don’t meet a German person with brown eyes and say to them “No, you can’t be german because your eyes aren’t blue” just…how ridiculous is that??? and why do people think they can argue with me about my heritage?? Why did a random guy I just met ASK ME ABOUT MY HERITAGE ??? who do that??? why do you care???
And okay, they were the only ones who asked why Spanish people were white if they live in Spain (look, I know, obviously, that not everyone is white or caucasian or whatever but you know what I mean), but there were more people who asked me about my eyes and if I had some heritage from the north. Look, I am gonna think you are on a holiday and you aren’t looking at the people around you because you have better things to do and I was your waitress who spoke English more or less so you kinda focused on me and noticed my eyes, so you decided to ask me because it’s impossible that I was the first person with light eyes you saw in Spain. Literally impossible. Maybe they thought everyone with light eyes has a foreign parent, I dunno. Anyway, one of the weirdest questions they had asked me, I am sure. Look, Spain, like many European countries, have had a lot of different people and cultures coming and going during the years. A lot. You can’t know the heritage of a person, it’s impossible. There were a lot of people, a lot of diversity, so many things and people mixed together, and therefore there are a lot of people and a lot of diversity now. And is gonna keep happening, in Spain and in the rest of the world because that is globalization and is normal, and natural. So please, stop asking stupid questions.
And I don’t really have anything to add to what they said above, because I am not a historian nor I have studied history in detail. I only know what they taught me in school and things I have read for fun, so I am not gonna talk about what I don’t know or what I think I know because someone told me once or whatever.But there’s one thing I remember my teacher saying about colonialism when he was teaching it: “I guess if you kill everyone, there’s no one left to complain.”
So yeah, countries suck. That’s life, boys. Depending of the time some sucked more than others and so. And countries suck because humans suck. Simple. Obviously, we don’t have to pretend that something didn’t happen because it did happen, but we can’t focus on it either because guess what?? It HAPPENED, in PAST TENSE. But I believe that thinking that your country sucks less than the rest based on unsubstantiated arguments or thinking you have a higher moral ground than the rest just because, is a very dangerous thought.. So yeah, your country has sucked at some time, you have sucked at some time, your neighbor has sucked at some time and everyone has sucked or will suck at some time.The only thing left to do is to try so in the future countries and people suck less, which is only possible if the human being, as individuals and collective, sucks less. We have hard work in front of us.
And how we say here “Agua pasada no mueve molinos”. Which literally would be “Water that has passed by can’t move the mill”, but I think in English the saying go by “it’s no good crying over spilt milk”.
blakekathryn
germansingergirl
yousharknotpass
snowghoul
titsay
